


Protecting Her Heart

by sam_writes_fics



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Anger, Angst, Episode: s03e05 War Crimes, F/M, Lies, War Crimes, post episode
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27962183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_writes_fics/pseuds/sam_writes_fics
Summary: Donna would never lie under oath, even if it the truth meant destroying her career. She would never lie to protect herself. She wouldn't even lie to protect the President (although she did consider it).She would, however, lie to protect her heart.**Set post episode 03x05 War Crimes, spoilers through that episode****Not my characters, just love to write about them**
Relationships: Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	Protecting Her Heart

_“You were subpoenaed! You were under oath! You answer the damn question!”_

_“I screwed up.”_

_“YOU THINK?!”_

_“…What should I do?”_

_“Do nothing. Do absolutely nothing.”_

_*_

Josh paced back and forth in his office, one hand on his hip and the other pulling at his hair. He was seeing red. He didn’t understand why she would do this; why she would put all of them, especially the president, in jeopardy by lying. Josh was furious at her.

It didn’t help that most of his anger was coming from a place of jealousy. Of all the local gomers for her to date, she just _had_ to go and sleep with the Republican lawyer at the forefront of this entire process? What was she _thinking_? Doesn’t she know what that could do to the president? To the staff? To him?

Josh took a deep breath and shook his head. He couldn’t think about that part right now. He needed to focus.

He took a moment to stand with his back straight against the wall. He found that it really did help him calm down, even when he wasn’t having an episode. Usually when he did this, he thought of late nights on the campaign trail, the celebration after a political victory, or even just hanging out with his friends at the local bar. Except today, he couldn’t think of any of those things, because when he did, he saw Donna in every single one of them. Today that wasn’t going to calm him down.

After a few deep breaths, he removed himself from the wall and grabbed his jacket as he came barreling out of his office. Donna was sitting at her desk, doing what he imagined to be absolutely nothing. He wasn’t sure; he couldn’t even look at her.

“Let’s go.”

She followed him, without uttering a single word, out of the west wing, out of the White House and all the way back to her apartment. They walked side by side not looking at each other. Josh looked straight ahead, trying to remember what other colors the world came in besides red, and Donna looked at the ground in front of her, as if she took her eyes off the pavement for one single second the ground would open up and swallow her whole.

When they finally reached the apartment, Donna unlocked the front door and Josh brushed past her in to the living room. He immediately started looking around the room without moving from where he stood.

Donna must have realized what he was doing, so she silently walked to her bedroom and pulled the diary out from under her bed. When she walked back in to the living room, his eyes immediately locked on to the diary.

“Give it to me.”

Donna crossed the room to where he was standing. She extended the book towards him. He swiped at it, but she was too quick. She pulled the book back towards her chest.

“Donna – “

“Josh.”

She said it with such conviction, that his eyes finally met hers. She looked scared.

Donna never looked scared, ever. Not in front of Josh. The only time he ever remembered her looking like that was the first night he woke up in GW after the shooting. She was sitting next to his hospital bed, holding his hand, and looking at him like if she looked away, he would stop breathing. He drifted back to sleep after that, and the next time he saw her she was talking with the doctors and with Leo and the President, going over care instructions or something else important. She looked tough, like she was about to fight a war she knew she couldn’t lose.

Now, she looked scared. At first, he thought it was because she knew how much trouble she was about to be in from lying under oath. But then, something flashed across her face, and just for a second her emotion changed. Josh couldn’t quite place it.

“What did you write in that diary?”

She held his steady gaze, not flinching, and not handing it over.

“Donna, I really couldn’t care less if you write something about Cliff –”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

She didn’t answer him. She only stared back at him, hoping he would connect the dots himself.

Josh didn’t understand. His head was swimming with a million different things, and he sure didn’t have time for this. He tried to search his brain for what could be so embarrassing for her that she would perjure herself. Something was off, there was a reason he wasn’t making the connection.

Donna wouldn’t lie to protect herself, not for something like this. She would, however, lie to protect someone else. That’s how Donna’s mind works, she puts everybody she meets on a pedestal higher than her own. Josh, now thinking in this new direction, went through a mental list of who she was trying to protect.

It couldn’t be President Bartlet, since she claimed it had no relevance to the trial. She must not have written about it the day Toby told her about the president’s MS. She was smart enough to at least not do that. It probably wasn’t Leo or Sam either, since both of their “scandals” had been publicized in the news as well. Anything Donna knew about both of those situations had been covered in newspapers across the country. Josh figured it probably wasn’t Toby or CJ either, because if Donna knew something big on either of them, surely, he would have known.

And then it hit him. Like a wall of bricks.

Donna was protecting him.

He knew it had to be something big. He knew it had to be big enough to ruin his career, or she wouldn’t jeopardize ruining her own. His first thought was that it was about this unspoken thing between them, but since nothing had actually happened, that wouldn’t be enough to take him down. It had to be something else.

Like how he put his hand through a window and had to sit down with a guy from ATVA and was diagnosed with PTSD.

Yeah, that would do it.

“Donna…”

She saw the change in his expression. She knew he figured it out.

She handed him the diary, and without a word they both sat down on the couch. Donna stared out the window with a hollow look on her face while Josh read through the diary, cover to cover.

When he finally finished flipping through the pages, he walked over to the phone in the kitchen and made a call. When he returned to the living room, Donna jumped off the couch.

“Josh let me –”

“We’ll talk about this after.”

“After what?”

Josh grabbed her hand and pulled her out the door without another word.

**Author's Note:**

> There will be at least one more chapter, so stay tuned.


End file.
